Over the past 24
hours, in separate law enforcement actions in two U.S. cities, the war on
terrorism has been joined with the war on illegal drug use. In Houston, four
men have been charged in a 25 million dollar drugs-for-weapons scheme. In San
Diego, three individuals have been indicted for conspiring to trade heroin and
hashish for anti-aircraft missiles which they said they intended to sell to al
Qaeda forces in Afghanistan.

Today, because U.S. law enforcement officers
have put their lives and personal safety on the line, narco-terrorists from
South America to Southeast Asia are less able to threaten American lives and
American security.

In Houston, we have charged four men in a
drugs-for-weapons plot to deliver some 25 million dollars worth of weaponry to
the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, known by its Spanish language
acronym, AUC. In the custody of Costa Rican and U.S. authorities this
afternoon are:

- Carlos Ali
Romero Varela, an associate of the AUC leadership and a Houston resident;

- Uwe Jensen, a naturalized U.S. citizen living in
Houston; and

- Cesar Lopez and Commandant Emilio, both
high-ranking AUC leaders.

These defendants are charged with conspiracy to
distribute cocaine and conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign
terrorist organization. Romero and Jensen sought to broker the
drugs-for-weapons exchange with AUC operatives Lopez and Emilio. If convicted
on all charges, each defendant faces up to life in prison.

Operation "White Terror" was a skillfully
executed, 13-month joint investigation under the Organized Crime Drug
Enforcement Task Force by special agents of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation and the Drug Enforcement Administration. The AUC . whose leader,
Carlos Castaņo-Gil, was charged with five counts of drug trafficking in
September . is an 8000-man Columbian paramilitary group listed on the State
Department's Foreign Terrorist Organization List. The Colombian police
estimate that the AUC is responsible for 804 assassinations, 203 kidnappings,
and 75 massacres with 507 victims during the first 10 months of 2000. Carlos
Castaņo-Gil has boasted that 70 percent of his group's financing comes from
drug trafficking.

The complaint filed against the defendants details
how Romero and Jensen arranged with an undercover law enforcement officer to
purchase five shipping containers full of Russian- and Eastern European-made
weaponry for the AUC. Among the weaponry the defendants are charged with
attempting to acquire are:

- Shoulder fired
anti-aircraft missiles and approximately 53 million rounds of various
types of ammunition;

Copies of the complaint, which are being made available, provide a full listing
of the weaponry negotiated for purchase.

In a simultaneous strike against
the terrorism-drug trafficking nexus, an indictment was unsealed this morning
in San Diego charging two Pakistani nationals and one United States citizen
with conspiring to provide Stinger anti-aircraft missiles to anti-U.S. forces
in Afghanistan.

Syed Mustajab Shah, Muhammed Abid Afridi and Ilyas
Ali are charged with conspiracy to distribute heroin and hashish and
conspiracy to provide material support to al Qaeda. The indictment alleges the
defendants arranged to exchange 600 kilograms of heroin and five metric tons
of hashish for cash and four Stinger anti-aircraft missiles. The indictment
charges that the defendants, who are currently in the custody of Hong Kong
authorities, said they intended to sell the anti-aircraft missiles to al Qaeda
forces in Afghanistan. If convicted on all counts, the defendants face up to
life in prison.

Both these successful investigations were the
result of literally thousands of hours of complex and often dangerous work by
law enforcement officials.

In the Houston case, undercover agents met with
the defendants to negotiate the drugs-for-weapons deal in London, the Virgin
Islands and Panama City, Panama. In the Virgin Islands, agents met with AUC
members at an undercover warehouse to inspect some of the weaponry involved in
the negotiations. These meetings were video and audio taped, exacerbating the
risk to the agents involved.

Likewise in the San Diego case, undercover law
enforcement officials met with the defendants and recorded their negotiations
for weapons and drugs. Some of these meetings took place in Hong Kong. It was
in one such meeting with undercover agents that the defendants stated that
they intended to sell Stinger missiles to al Qaeda.

I thank Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson for
his pivotal role in the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force, which
oversaw the Houston investigation with the FBI and the DEA. Larry Thompson was
one of the original OCDETF prosecutors and has spearheaded the reorganization
and revitalization of OCDETF as the centerpiece of our illegal drug supply
reduction strategy. I thank you for his leadership in this case and many
others.

My thanks and gratitude go to Director Robert Mueller and the many agents
of the Federal Bureau of Investigation who put themselves at personal risk to
secure these arrests.

I thank also DEA Administrator Asa Hutchinson for
his work and the work of his team. Their dedication and courage were central
to severing the deadly, mutually re-enforcing connection between drug
trafficking and terrorism in these cases.

And I recognize and commend the two dedicated U.S.
Attorneys at the center of these cases. U.S. Attorney Michael Shelby in
Houston, who is with me here today, distinguished himself in bringing these
charges. And U.S. Attorney Carol Lam in San Diego lead the team in San Diego
in obtaining the indictment unsealed today. I thank both these individuals for
their contribution.

I thank, as well, the following Special Agents in
Charge: Rich Garcia and Kevin Whaley in Houston and William Gore and Michael
Vigil in San Diego.

Terrorism and drug trafficking thrive in the same conditions, support each
other, and feed off each other. This afternoon, the nation is safer and our
citizens are more secure because a group of dedicated public servants has
broken the link. in two instances at least . between terrorism and drug
trafficking. They have earned our admiration, our respect, and our
gratitude.